About 72 percent of registered voters in the United States identify themselves as Christian, according to a Harris Poll taken during the 2000 presidential election.

That may explain why the same-sex marriage issue doesn’t fall into a clear separation of church and state and has become a volatile issue across the country. While none of the dozens of denominations have doctrines condoning homosexuality, a few are exploring the issue.

Earlier this month, 1,000 delegates from 115 worldwide United Methodist Church conferences met in Pittsburgh for their General Conference. They voted to maintain the church’s position that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.

A proposal to soften the church’s position and to include the statement that not all Christians agree on the issue was shot down by a 55 percent majority.

The United Methodist Church is the third largest Christian denomination in the United States – after the Catholic and Baptist churches – and the second largest Protestant church.

The Methodist church is in the top four denominations in 44 states, with only the Catholic Church being more widespread by being among the top four in 48 states. Maine has 172 United Methodist churches.

With more than 37,000 churches and 14 million members, including President Bush and his wife, Laura Bush, the United Methodist Church has long been viewed as one of the more moderate and diverse branches.

“Its tolerance is one of the things that attracted me to the church in the early 1980s,” said Rich Cullen, pastor at the United Methodist Church in Auburn. “I had gotten disillusioned with the more conservative churches.”

Cullen was raised Catholic and had explored other Protestant churches. He noted that the New England Conference of the United Methodist organization held the most liberal views in the country but is outnumbered by more conservative regions. Cullen disagreed with the position taken at the General Conference.

“If you look at the red and blue states from the last presidential election, you’ll get a good idea of where the United Methodist Church’s views differ,” Cullen said.

Comprising 557 churches, the New England Conference sent 12 delegates to the General Conference as part of the Northeastern Jurisdiction, which includes 11 conferences.

The largest regions were the Southeastern Jurisdiction with 28 percent of the delegates and the Central Jurisdiction, comprising international conferences, with 20 percent of the General Conference votes.